Although physical hands-on laboratory experiments are commonly used in schools, virtual laboratory environments are also being used in science classrooms. Their possibilities and impact on students’ achievement, conceptual understanding, and inquiry skills have been investigated by other researchers. Yet, it is difficult to find studies about the effect of virtual learning environments on written argumentation in science classrooms. In the current study, the influence of hands-on and virtual laboratories on pre-service science teachers’ scientific writing was investigated using the science writing heuristic. The participants were 52 pre-service science teachers who were assigned to two conditions. One group used the hands-on laboratory to design and implement experiments and used a paper-based worksheet to write their arguments; the other group did their investigations through a computer-based virtual-tool laboratory and wrote their arguments on the online learning platform. Pre-service science teachers’ written arguments were evaluated using content analysis. The findings revealed that the overall quality of written arguments created by pre-service science teachers in both laboratory environments was at an intermediate level. Furthermore, pre-service science teachers who learned in the virtual laboratory posed better testable questions, presented strong and valid evidence, and used multiple representations better than their counterparts in the hands-on laboratory. An important conclusion of the current study is that the science writing heuristic can be used effectively in both virtual and hands-on laboratory environments.

尽管物理动手实验室实验通常在学校中使用，但虚拟实验室环境也在科学教室中使用。其他研究人员已经研究了它们的可能性以及对学生成绩，概念理解和探究技能的影响。然而，很难找到关于虚拟学习环境对科学课堂书面论证的影响的研究。在当前的研究中，使用科学写作启发法研究了动手和虚拟实验室对职前科学教师科学写作的影响。参与者是52位职前科学老师，他们被分配了两个条件。一个小组使用动手实验室来设计和实施实验，并使用基于纸张的工作表来写下他们的论点。另一小组通过基于计算机的虚拟工具实验室进行了调查，并在在线学习平台上写下了自己的论点。职前科学教师的书面论证使用内容分析进行评估。调查结果表明，在两个实验室环境中，职前科学老师提出的书面论证的总体质量处于中等水平。此外，在虚拟实验室中学习的职前科学教师提出了更好的可测试问题，提供了有力且有效的证据，并且比动手实验室中的同行更好地使用了多种表示形式。当前研究的一个重要结论是，科学写作启发法可以在虚拟实验室和动手实验室环境中有效使用。